Freedom of the Hills

Thank you MLK, Jr for fighting for freedom. I took my day off in your honor to celebrate the freedom of the hills in the back country of Mt. Baker, towards Coleman Pinnacle.
For the trip report---- For the photos

Film, Music, and Literature Influences of 2007

This is my chance to offer up suggestions for your expanding cultural savvy.
These are my, somewhat overlapping, highlights from 2007.

Film: While very different, these two top my list this year for story telling, each in their own way.
ONCE
Into the Wild

Music:
Swell Season (and music from the movie ONCE)
Jose Gonzales, In our Nature
Mike Doughty, Golden Delicious
Fiest, The Reminder
Block Ice and Propane, cello music by photographer Lee Freidlander's son, Erik
The Project, Winter in June (video of a Mingus tune!)
Turkish clarinetist, Selim Sesler, from the German movie Crossing the Bridge. Watch him play!
Iron and Wine, The Shepherds Dog

Influential writers:
Orhan Pamuk
Diane Ackerman, her new book The Zoo Keepers Wife
Michael Pollan
Richard Louv, check out the Children and Nature Network

10.19 Birth

I rode in on the lingering breathy kiss of a wind storm. Morning sun climbed out above the cloudy covers, giving garden trees a rainbow of red, orange, yellow, and late-lying green waves with the warm light. We were born today in a children's garden, full of seeds like the pumpkin we discovered there among the bent sunflowers.

The light was fleeting. Rains came quickly. Drops of sweetness secretly gathered, and when the bell rang, they sang to me as I blushed. Maybe rain is a teen-ager—shifting intensity throughout the day, stomping on the ceiling, hailing attention from even the most focused, and fading as it breaks. At one point, I shivered just looking out the streaked window.

A mixed bag blossomed as I zipped into my hatches to saddle up. Sun burst on the west; skies tumbled on the east. In the crossroads I pushed off with rainbows in my head, heart, and horizon. I was thwaped alive, smiling. Soon, like any good storm, there were blue skies, Magritte clouds, and still puddles.

under an orange sky

One of the joys of riding my bike to work so early in the morning is the sunrise. Not just viewing it from a window, but being in it--waking and breathing with it, becoming colored and growing warm. Today the sky was ablaze, fire orange, pumpkin-gut gorgeous. The Cascades, a serrated knife, carved a seasonal jack-o-lantern out of the last few spooky rainy days. What a treat!

Curiosity strikes again

True, it has been too long since I've added a post to this blog. But once, seven years ago, I committed to recording the life of a dear friend as a mama. When her daughter speaks words of inquiry or wisdom, I swore I'd write them down. So last night, the six year old calls me up. "Didi, since you are a science teacher, I have a question."

"Yes?"

"Can you separate gas?"

"Yes."

"How?"

and I launch into a kid friendly explanation of helium party balloons and density as a characteristic property of matter, which my 6th grade students will learn this very week. I continue on about the mixture of air around us, including oxygen we breathe.

"We also breathe in carbon dioxide," she chuckles.

"What's so funny?" I wonder.

"Carbon dioxide." She repeats. "Such a hard word to say!"

"Beautiful." Simply beautiful.

Learning Turkish

Merhaba.
It's funny how learning one new language can trip your brain into remembering other languages. In Turkish, where is translates as "nereye". But in my head I keep repeating "doko deska?" which is Japanese for where is. My mind is playing tricks. What these two languages have in common is that I can't for the life of me hear the break between words. Japanese was a slurry of syllables. Turkish sounds to me as if the speaker has marbles in his mouth. How are you? sounds like nashulsuhnhuz. My ear for language is hardening and I've had more difficulty with these two than with any other, including Nepali. In fact, I'm recalling words in Nepali as I learn new words in Turkish. Kalo chia dinos. I'll take that tea, iced, in the Mediterranean.
Gorusuruz.

The Low Carbon Commute

Yesterday was the first day of the 2007 Bike to Work Commuter Challenge. I head up a team from school again, where this year I've doubled the participation of staff. So, wearing my team captain t-shirt I pushed off from school yesterday at 3 o'clock to bike 15 miles north to Bothell's NorthShore School District office for an Earth Charter Global Climate Workshop for teachers. The sponsors were a great set of organizations: Yes! magazine, Facing the Future, and World Affairs Council. The keynote speaker was the renown Dr. Richard Gammon of UW's Program on the Environment. What a way to kick off the low carbon commute. Do what you can to reduce your carbon footprint. For us in the Northwest, with hydropower, transportation is the number one cause of carbon emissions.

Today was another reason to bike to work. The University Bridge was closed all day due to a water main leak that created a sink hole. Traffic, including bikes, rerouted over other bridges. I nearly had an entire, normally busy street, to myself! Bike on!